How Sizing Up in My Jeans Taught Me a Valuable Lesson in Body Acceptance

The mere sight of a fitting room instills fear in me: It has always been a space associated with pain, disappointment, and deep, deep shame.

Growing up, I was acutely aware of the fact that thin = good. Merely existing in our society will do that to you, and if you couple that with a particularly diet-culture-heavy environment and being a people pleaser like me, it’s a done deal.

I wasn’t thin—it’s simply not my body type—and that was a cause of profound distress in my life: It dominated my existence in various different forms of disordered eating and chronic dieting until I finally sought help in my late 20s.

But fitting rooms were the pinnacle of my body shame. Conditioned by messaging telling me that anything above a size 10 was undesirable and needs addressing, my ever-fluctuating (but never down to a size 10) body just didn’t measure up. I would desperately try and squeeze myself into sizes I knew deep down just didn’t belong to me, and I would sometimes even buy those sizes, not allowing myself to even contemplate a higher number.

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The label in the back of clothes was so physically small, yet so significantly meaningful to me, that jamming my body into a size too small and suffering the consequences of this discomfort was favorable to purchasing the same item with a different number on the label. My jeans used to dig in so badly that they felt like they were cutting my skin, leaving marks that lasted all night.

I went through eating disorder recovery, and I worked really, really hard on healing my relationship with food and with my body. But it still didn’t occur to me until later down the line to size up in clothing. I happened upon an Instagram post that compared squeezing your foot into a shoe that’s too small to squeezing your body into clothing that’s too small. It was an analogy that resonated with me—why was I punishing my body for simply existing at a certain size? It was naturally around the weight I fell, and whatever size category that put me into, that should be okay.

Plus, I began to ask myself, What’s actually wrong with wearing a bigger size? There shouldn’t be such a stigma. I had to work hard on my internalized fatphobia—instilled in the vast majority of us through our society’s intense fear of fatness—to understand why I was so reluctant to size up and to push past this mental discomfort.

When I finally bit the bullet and invested in clothes in a bigger size—the right size for me—it was incredibly liberating. Accepting it and giving in to it didn’t feel like giving up, as I had feared; it felt like breaking free. And as for the comfort? I couldn’t believe I hadn’t done it sooner. I felt sorry for my former self.

It’s important to acknowledge that I write all of this as someone who, despite not being able to fit into the coveted size 10 ideal, is still straight-size (meaning not plus-size), and I have the luxury and privilege of being able to walk into a shop or shop online and easily find clothes in my size. Although there are now so many more brilliant inclusive plus-size brands, this is a problem plus-size women unfortunately can still face. Financial means is also a barrier to sizing up.

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For anyone that’s hesitant about taking the plunge and sizing up their jeans (and clothes), why don’t you start with one piece of clothing in the right size and see how you feel? You could even cut the label out if it might help initially put you more at ease. Ultimately, though, it’s important to know that you deserve comfort and you deserve to respect and care for your body no matter its size. Besides, a number is simply a number: Our society puts an emphasis on chasing smaller numbers and fearing higher numbers that adds this arbitrary value to dress sizes. But remember that that’s exactly what it is: arbitrary.

Sizing up is not a failure. Looking after yourself and your body should be your number one priority. Buy the bigger size and don’t look back.

This post was originally published in Glamour